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| Portrait of Moina Michael |
Many a good idea has been scribbled on the back of an envelope. On
November 9, 1918, two days before the armistice that officially ended the First
World War, education professor and Athens resident Moina Michael used the back
of an envelope to respond to Lt. Col. John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Field.”
McCrae’s last verse bemoaned veterans and casualties of war when abandoned by
those they protected:
“To you from failing hands we throw
the Torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die, we
shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders Field.”
Michael wrote a poem in response, her phrases
full of ardent sympathy. Her own last verse reads:
“And now the Torch and Poppy Red
we wear in honor of our dead. Fear not that ye have died for naught; we'll teach the lesson that ye wrought in Flanders Fields.”
From this moment grew an industry of charity
whose worldwide contributions to veterans of WWI would, after adjusting for
inflation, sum over $3 billion. Michael began to wear and champion the wearing
of red silk poppies in remembrance of fallen and wounded soldiers. After
interest within her community grew, she began selling poppies, with the profits
benefiting veterans of the Great War. She undertook national letter-writing
campaigns, and by 1920 the poppy was designated the official flower of the
American Legion. Not only did the proceeds directly assist veterans, but
injured veterans considered unfit for labor could be employed crafting these
poppies. Michael continued her active role in Athens by teaching classes of
disabled servicemen, attending Disabled American Veterans meetings and planting
poppies on the campus of the University of Georgia.
Michael’s legacy as “the Poppy Lady” continues,
not only in her tradition of remembrance, but in the fabric of Athens itself.
The Georgia Museum of Art recently received a donation of a portrait of
Michael, painted by Thomas James Delbridge. The work comes to the museum from
Michael’s relative Lucia Howard Sizemore, as
part of a larger donation to UGA’s Special Collections
Libraries. The
portrait depicts Michael clothed in white, bearing a solemn expression and a
bouquet of red poppies against an austere dark background. Delbridge was born
in Atlanta in 1894 and was active in the South and all around the country
before his death in Long Island in 1968. His painting “Lower Manhattan” was
included in the 2009-10 Smithsonian exhibition “1934: A New Deal for Artists.”
His contemplative portrayal of Michael will soon hang near the museum’s exhibition “For Home and
Country: World War I Posters from the Blum Collection.”
Organized by
Georgia Museum of Art director William U. Eiland with the assistance of head
preparatory Todd Rivers, the exhibition highlights propaganda posters from
across the world, including the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany. These posters
put a unified image to struggle and created a singular effort behind which all
citizens could rally. The exhibition invites viewers to investigate the means
by which governments on either side of the conflict gathered and maintained
support from their citizens. “For Home and Country” can be found in the Boone
and George-Ann Knox Gallery II until November 11, 2018. You can read more about the exhibition here.
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